The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is planning to delay the hotly anticipated auction of the former broadcast television spectrum space due to concerns that it is not yet ready to properly handle the reallocation process.
The FCC on Friday said that it would push back the target date for its Broadcast Television …

COMMENTS

Are they serious?

The broadcasters were all given licenses to new frequency allocations.

Why should they get a single cent for the old ones that were only on loan to them in the first place?

It's not their property!!!!

Electromagnetic spectrum in the U.S. belongs to the people of the U.S. as a whole, and none of it should ever have been sold off, only long-term leased, in case a previously unforeseen more important use for a particular chunk of it came along later.

And of course this whole turn TV digital and move it from VHF to UHF was supposed to be for the purpose of freeing up VHF for the first responder.

Haven't heard anything about them getting any of it to use in a long time now.

Re: Are they serious?

The money spent on that transition would have been better off going to cable and satellite companies to pay for basic services offered to all for free. This way additional spectrum would have been available to auction off and serve a better purpose. The money the spectrum would have brought in would have more than covered it. How many millions were spent on the coupons for a free receiver just to support the transition.

Re: Are they serious?

Says you. The fact is as of 2012 only 9% of the households use terrestrial antennas for TV service. So clearly the people that use it and the spectrum associated with it are used by the minority. The voucher program alone cost $2 billion to the taxpayer. That spectrum used by digital broadcast TV would be better off in the hands of wireless providers than that of TV stations; at least in populated areas. The only people that want broadcast TV around are the affiliates and the 9% that watch it. The major networks that have affiliates actually want broadcast TV gone. They make more money on their other stations. The over $2 billion was a waste of money and giving it to the cable and satellite companies in lieu of them providing basic service for free to all that ask would have been far better. That 9% will only decrease as time goes on and many people had issues receiving the digital signal anyway.

"For the incentive auction to be a success, we must also ensure that the operating systems and software to run it work from the moment the first bid is placed, until the final broadcast station is relocated or repacked."

No you don't. That is up to the suppliers and the owners of the spectrum to accomplish. Never in the history of any spectrum auction did the FCC play any role in making sure the spectrum could be used immediately nor should they.

Elementary Pronoun Primer

"For the incentive auction to be a success, we must also ensure that the operating systems and software to run it work from the moment the first bid is placed, until the final broadcast station is relocated or repacked."

In the above, the only noun to which it could possibly refer is auction. There is no reference to the spectrum itself. The FCC is not planning to take responsibility for usability of the spectrum, only for the stability of the auction.

Now go to the back of the class and re-read chapter 7 until you understand it.